Vendor Due Diligence| Combating Laundering & Financing Terrorism

Vendor Due Diligence involves verifying third-party businesses before onboarding or starting a partnership. It is a security feature that screens the partner business with various checks. This will ensure that the companies the business works with are legal and not involved in criminal activities. The due diligence assessment guarantees the corporate entity is real and not a threat to the company’s integrity.

For vendor due diligence, the company needs information about the company. It must also secure this confidential data through a secure database and bolster the steps with advanced technology to protect it from cybercriminals. This article will guide adequately conducting vendor due diligence and preventing cyber criminals from launching ransomware attacks.

What is Vendor Due Diligence? 

In this digital life, technology innovations are revamping many companies. Some companies are using this technology to boost their revenue and bolster security. On the other hand, various bad actors use this to conduct their illicit activities. Various innovative technologies assist them in counterfeiting any product or document, which they can use to enter the financial system. Vendor due diligence is essential to identify the identity-associated risk of partnering with suppliers or service providers.

This process is to verify the partner company’s compliance with regulatory bodies’ obligations. It ensures the partner business is legal and the company has secure financial traders. They will not exploit the policies and uphold the compliance procedure according to national and international laws.

Why is the Vendor Due Diligence Essential?

• The due diligence report is designed for the third-party company or a potential business investor. Due to the risk of money laundering and terrorist financing, companies need to verify the identity of partner businesses.
• VDD is necessary for companies to comply with the regulations to avoid non-compliance penalties
• It also ensures that the vendor company owns register onboarding and is not involved in financial crimes.
• Following the vendor due diligence checklist is essential to reduce compliance risk and reputational damage.
• It provides the partner company’s in-depth ownership structure, allowing monitoring of any type of pivot in their ownership framework.
• Businesses can access valuable information about the partner business through the vendor due diligence checklist.

Vendor Due Diligence Check List 

The company can follow the steps to verify the third-party business to achieve adequate results through vendor due diligence. Complying with these steps enhances the company’s security and ensures the partner business is legal as well as not involved in illicit activities. This also secures the integrity of the global economy by preventing bad actors from entering the financial system. Before entering financial institutes, they can disclose the company’s hidden narratives. As like, customer due diligence, the company in vendor due diligence focuses on the businesses. Follow the given steps to establish a secure environment with the business:

Collect the information

To verify the business’s third-party entities, company representatives must collect various information, such as registration number, license, owner details, financial statement, insurance details, and others, according to the company policies. This process aims to gather the essential documents from the partner businesses to verify this further.

Validate the information 

After collecting the essential documents from the company, they validate the data by attesting to the security features of the papers and cross-checking these from the original records. For document verifications, the company guarantees security features, such as fonts, borders, signatures, etc. Additionally, to ensure the data written on paper is authentic, they cross-check it against the original government records.

Screen Vendor Profile 

Companies must screen a valid partner profile against the watchlist sanctions to comply with law enforcement obligations. This ensures the third-party entity is not involved in illicit activities such as money laundering, drug trafficking, mass weaponization, and terrorist financing. They match the company’s information against the government and private databases, including the PEPs, SIEs, ICJ, AML/CFT, and FBI.

UBOs Verification 

To identify the vendor’s real owners, they have to verify the company’s corporate structure. This unveils the actual funding source enjoying the real business. The scammers create a complex ownership structure to hide the company’s actual owner. This gives them leverage to engage in illicit activities without coming out of the curtains. The transparent corporate structure of the company

Automate Vendor Due Diligence 

Traditional checks take time and require a hefty budget for vendor due diligence. In the classical business verification technique, the company relies on human resources, which are completely error-prone. They provide false positive results and do not store records in a secure database, increasing the chance of money laundering and cyber crimes. To overcome this fraud, companies can use business verification tools that assist them in compliance with vendor due diligence checks. The automation software utilizes machine learning and robust AI technology to bolster security and streamline business verification.